The Flat

If modern Britain lives in a terrace house and loves a cottage, it cannot make its mind up about the high-rise flat. For Dan, the idea of living high above the city streets really is the future once again. He is in Bow in east London, charting the history of one estate. Designed in 1960, the 19-storey Lincoln was once the tallest residential building in London. Inside every flat were the latest space-age gadgets - a lift, a shower and a fitted kitchen. But the dream turned sour. The Lincoln became notorious for drugs and violence. There was even a brutal murder. It was the same all over Britain - the flat was a byword for deprivation and social exclusion. But then, just as everything looked lost, the Lincoln was saved and with, perhaps, the hopes of an entire generation for that most precious of things - a home. For Dan, as perhaps for Britain, 'the only way is up'.